


Everybody Wants To Be A Cat

by doctortrekkie



Series: Break Me Down and Build Me Up [11]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, How Soot Gremlin came to be, Pets, This is one of the fluffiest things I have ever written in my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23026939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctortrekkie/pseuds/doctortrekkie
Summary: In the midst of an unseasonably wet autumn, Chon’sin’s monarchs find themselves with an unexpected addition to the family.Alternatively Titled: Five Times Say’ri Did Not Want To Keep The Cat, And One Time She Did(Begins a year and a half after the end ofWhatever It Takesand a year and a half before the beginning ofBeliever;October 1017)
Relationships: Azur | Inigo/Say'ri
Series: Break Me Down and Build Me Up [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1049543
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	1. The First Time

**Author's Note:**

> I promised to give you all Soot Gremlin's origin story, didn't I? I honestly had *way too much fun* writing this thing. (And yes, the title song is from Aristocats. Sue me)

_ Everybody wants to be a cat, because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at, everybody’s pickin’ up on that feline beat, ‘cause everything else is obsolete… _

**Royal Palace, Dai’chi, Chon’sin—October 17, 1017**

Dai’chi rained in the spring.

It was a simple fact of life, just as Regna Ferox was cold in the winter. One was prepared for weeks on end of damp, overcast days only occasionally broken by a breath of sunlight, and one learned how to handle the months of sticky, slippery mud.

Dai’chi did  _ not  _ typically rain in the fall, yet Say’ri had found herself looking out the window at such a thing for the sixth day in a row.

She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. Rain this time of year could only lead to frets about the harvest, and such frets could potentially lead to a lean winter. Chon’sin had been blessed last year with an abundance, one less thing to worry about as they learned to settle into the stability of a new monarch, but at the moment Say’ri could only fear her second winter as queen would prove far more difficult.

As she pondered such a thing, the front door opened with a force she would have expected of Owain—had her husband’s cousin not taken his leave of the palace a few weeks ago, deciding that in the wake of Ophelia’s second birthday that it was high time to begin the pilgrimage across Valm he’d crossed the sea to undertake. The palace—and particularly the new royal apartments, just finished with enough room to hold a dozen people yet currently only occupied by two—had been achingly, ringingly quiet ever since.

Until this moment, it seemed.

Inigo stood in the opening, shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear the water from his eyes before wrestling the door closed against the wind and rain once more. Water had still blown into the immediate opening, but Say’ri was less concerned about  _ that  _ and more about her husband’s own appearance.

“What in Naga’s name did  _ you  _ get into?” she asked, papers forgotten as she rose to her feet.

Inigo shot her a cheeky grin that was not nearly as effective as he’d likely hoped it to be. His entire front was smeared with mud, to such an extent she almost wondered if his current attire would be ruined forever; his hair, as well, had gained its own collection of grime, sticking up at odd angles as if he’d been struck by an errant Thunder spell. “Want a hug, love?” he asked cheerily.

Say’ri didn’t dignify that with a response, instead quirking a brow and asking, “Did you decide to  _ crawl  _ across one of the gardens?”

“Under one of the gazebos, actually,” he said, still in that lilting tone that did nothing to actually explain his appearance.

“And, if I may be so bold to ask, prithee  _ why?”  _ she asked dryly.

Before Inigo himself could answer, his jacket did—with an odd, peeping noise.

Say’ri’s brow quirked even higher.

“Okay,” Inigo said. “So I can explain.” With that, he reached into his coat, his motions ginger as he produced a tiny ball of fluff from the inside pocket.

Automatically, Say’ri took a step back, her voice rising in an aghast note she couldn’t quite contain. “Is that a  _ cat?” _

“It’s a  _ kitten,”  _ he corrected, smoothing his other hand over the fur. The thing scarcely took up his entire palm, so dirty itself that the color of its coat was impossible to tell.

“And you brought it in the  _ house?”  _ she demanded.

He shot her an odd, almost offended look. “Well I wasn’t gonna leave him  _ outside,”  _ he told her. “Look at him, he’s a baby, his ears aren’t even up all the way—”

“It’s not staying in the house,” Say’ri said flatly. “If it’s such a baby, then go give it back to its mother.”

“I don’t think his mother’s around, love,” Inigo told her absently. “I told you I had to crawl under the gazebo to get him, ‘cause he was down there crying and there definitely weren’t any other cats answering—where can we put him? There’s got to be a box or something around here—”

_ “Inigo,”  _ Say’ri said sharply. “For one, just—hold still before you drop an entire landmass on the floor, would you, and for another, we can’t just  _ keep the cat.” _

“Why not?”

An exasperated sound rose in her throat. “Why on earth  _ would  _ we?  _ I’ve  _ no need for such a furry little menace scratching up  _ the brand new building,  _ do you? They are perfectly suited to being outdoor creatures and I see no reason why this particular one would be any different.”

Inigo, meanwhile, only drew the kitten closer to his chest. “Because he’s a  _ baby,”  _ he protested again. “He can barely stand on his own, love, no less feed himself! He’ll die if I put him back outside, do you want that on your conscience?”

Say’ri blew out a sharp breath. “Fie, Inigo, of course I don’t wish it dead, I just…” She held her arms out to the sides. “How do you propose to even take care of it? Have you ever kept a cat before? No less one so young?”

“Well, no,” Inigo admitted. “But it can’t be that hard, can it?”

A long moment passed. “Fie,” Say’ri said again.

Inigo, meanwhile, merely shrugged. “Surely someone in the palace has got to know about cats, though. I’ll just have to put out some feelers.”

Finally, Say’ri sighed. “I’ll have  _ Chi’hiro  _ put out feelers,” she told him. “Whilst you  _ bathe.” _

Inigo shot her a remarkably dirty look, still with the kitten pulled to his chest.

“I’m not going to throw it out whilst you’re absent,” she promised with a shake of her head. “But the moment ‘tis old enough to be weaned, ‘tis going back outside.”

He grinned at her. “Wonderful! Go on then, get acquainted,” he said, holding the thing out to her.

She took another step backward. “Absolutely not. I am going with the box of your first suggestion. ‘Tis liable to have… fleas and things,” she finished disdainfully.

“Come on, now, love, but isn’t he cute?” Inigo coaxed.

Say’ri gave him a deadpan stare.  _ Cute  _ was not quite the word she would have used for the mudball. “So long as you keep in mind not to get attached,” she told him.

Naga help her, but he already had stars in his eyes, she thought with another sigh.


	2. The Second Time

**Royal Palace, Dai’chi, Chon’sin—November 13, 1017**

_ Mayhap if I move Lord Tai’ki to next week… _

_ Mew. _

_...then I’ll have time to squeeze in Lady Ni’shi… _

_ Mew. _

_...and that ought to get Suzu’rin off my back for at least a few weeks… _

_ Mew. _

“I am not your personal chef,” Say’ri finally told the kitten loftily. “You’ll have to wait for himself.”

_ Mew,  _ said the cat, peering at her from inside its crate. Its piercing cry only seemed to ring in her already aching skull.

Considering just how very  _ young  _ the thing had been upon Inigo’s discovering it—younger than either one of them had originally guessed—it was a wonder it had subsequently done so well for itself. One the cooks had lent her feline expertise in the beginning, despite her skepticism on its chances of survival. She had also brusquely informed them, upon discovering the gray, white, and orange coloring that laid beneath the layers of mud, that the kitten was female.

And, defying all logic and reason, the thing had actually survived, and Inigo had become utterly  _ infatuated  _ with it. He carried it around so much it was a wonder it had learned how to walk at all. He had, at least, listened to reason and had so far refrained from naming the kitten, but it seemed as though such a thing had done little to lessen his attachment.

_ Mew,  _ the kitten said again. Say’ri sighed, bringing a hand to her face.

Finally, blessedly, one of the doors upstairs slid open.

“Would you  _ please,”  _ Say’ri called, not even bothering to disguise the irritation in her tone, “feed your little soot gremlin so it stops crying before I succumb to the urge to stab a knife through my temple?”

Up on the balcony above, the sound of Inigo’s footsteps paused, and when Say’ri finally glanced up at him he had a hurt expression on his face. “Come on, now, love, she’s not that bad,” he chided.

“You are not the one down here listening to its racket,” she replied dryly.

“You could’ve fed her, you know,” Inigo said, descending the rest of the staircase.

_ “You  _ are the one who brought it into this house and  _ you  _ are the one who promised to care for it,” Say’ri said.

Inigo, meanwhile, shot her a rather cross look. “You’d like her if you gave her half a chance,” he said, scooping the kitten up into his arms. It began to purr immediately. “You’re not a soot gremlin, are you? You’re a wonderful, sweet little kitten.”

“‘Tis most definitely a gremlin, and it so happens to be the color of soot. I think it mayhap could be the most appropriate agnomen I could have granted it.”

“It’s a bit mean-spirited, though,” Inigo said, depositing the cat on the kitchen counter and beginning to rummage in the cabinets for its meal.

“Well, I certainly did not call it that out of affection.”

“Why,” Inigo asked without missing a beat, “do you hate cats so much?”

“I do not hate them,” Say’ri said. “They serve a purpose in keeping down the vermin population; I cannot hate them knowing how overrun we would be in a week without them. I simply cannot fathom how far beyond that your affinity for the thing goes.”

“That’s an odd thing for you to say, considering you grew so attached to your horse during the war you insisted on bringing her home,” Inigo pointed out, turning back and running a hand down the kitten’s spine.

“‘Tis a different matter entirely,” Say’ri replied. “The bond of horse and rider benefits both parties—could be counted necessary, even, considering the stakes of war. There is no such benefit with feline as there is with equine; it mayhap could even be counted as a detriment, considering said feline would be far less likely to hunt for itself when it knows it can go and beg food off the nearest gullible human.”

Inigo sighed, shook his head, and didn’t answer for a moment. He scooped the cat back up, its meal in hand, and dropped down to sit beside Say’ri. “Guess I’m not changing your mind, then.”

“Mayhap you will, if you let it out in a few weeks and it transforms into the best hunter in the palace thanks to your influence,” Say’ri said dryly, returning to her papers. “Until then, no.”

Inigo frowned, a soft and displeased hum escaping him as the kitten settled into its dinner. Neither of them spoke again until it had finished; when it had, he set it off to the side of his lap and rose once more to return to the kitchen.

_ Mew,  _ it said once more, clearly half-asleep as it stumbled toward Say’ri in a drunken fashion. It sat at her knee, tail curled neatly over its front toes, and tilted its head to fix her with a faintly pleading look.

“Little soot gremlin,” she muttered, gazing at it for a moment before once more flipping through her papers.


	3. The Third Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey look I'm back with more cat fic after half a year.

**Royal Palace, Dai’chi, Chon’sin—December 19, 1017**

“Welcome back.”

“Alas, though the journey was long and the road was winding, I have once more returned to these not-so-hallowed paper walls,” Owain said, shaking his head absently to rid it of the flakes of snow accumulating in his hair.

“‘Glad to see you too, Inigo, let me just insult your house,’” Inigo said dryly. “‘Thanks for inviting me in, I’m so glad to spend the holiday with you, and by the way I disapprove of your design choices but that won’t stop me from eating your food—’”

“Oh, hush you,” Say’ri chided. “Let the man in the doorway before you start vexing him, would you?”

“I’m not sure my cousin is capable of such rationality, dear Say’ri,” Owain pointed out. “Clearly my mere dark presence infects his mind with the irresistible urge to roast me—”

“Fie,” said Say’ri, “I should’ve known better. Hello, Ophelia.”

Ophelia barely lifted her head from the crook of her father’s neck, giving a bleary sort of two-fingered wave in response. Inigo chuckled. “Someone looks ready for bed.”

“Someone’s been ready for bed for the last two hours,” Owain replied dryly. “Where’ve you put us?”

“This way,” Say’ri said, gesturing with one hand and reaching for one of Owain’s packs with the other. Inigo took another, hauling it over his shoulder and leading the way up the stairs. He reached the door first, plainly intending to step aside and let them in before casting a look inside and immediately lighting up with distraction.

_ “There  _ you are!” he cried, striding over to the bed and setting Owain’s pack on the floor. “Did you sneak in here while the maids were cleaning?”

Owain gave Say’ri a puzzled glance over the top of Ophelia’s head, then craned his neck to peer inside. “Since when do you have a  _ cat?”  _ he asked as Inigo lifted the kitten into his arms.

“Since about two months ago,” Say’ri said with a long sigh.

“I  _ rescued  _ her,” Inigo put in importantly, scratching at the kitten’s ears and being swiftly rewarded with a purr. “Her mother abandoned her in those awful storms we had in October.”

“He crawled under the gazebo,” Say’ri continued dryly. Owain snickered. “Quite a frightful sight he made, begging me to keep her.  _ Until she was weaned.”  _ She lifted a brow at that, very clearly emphasizing the words.

Inigo seemed unbothered by her assertion. “Just because she’s not drinking milk anymore doesn’t mean she’s ready to go outside,” he said benignly.

“If you had your choice she’d never be ready,” Say’ri said, crossing her arms.

“Well,” Inigo said, shrugging. He seemed to intend it in the same way he’d shrug and say  _ Well, the sky is blue.  _ His smile only grew as the kitten stretched to headbutt at his chin; he lowered his head to nuzzle in kind.

“You best not plan on kissing  _ me  _ with that mouth anytime soon,” Say’ri told him. Owain snickered again.

_ “Say’ri,”  _ Inigo sighed.

“So what,” Owain interjected, “is the title for this fluffy little sower of marital disharmony?”

“She’s not  _ sowing—”  _ Inigo began.

“She hasn’t a name,” Say’ri said. “‘Twas a vain attempt on my part to lessen his attachment.”

“You say that when you’re the one who ended up naming her.”

She lifted a brow. “I did no such thing.”

“You’ve called her ‘soot gremlin’ so much that she answers to it now,” Inigo pointed out. As if to back him up, the kitten peeped in response. “See?”

Owain laughed at that, long and hard, slowly lowering himself to his knees to deposit the still sluggish Ophelia on her feet. “I apologize, dear Soot Gremlin, that I was not here for the crucial titling period of your life,” he said formally. “For I myself could have come up with a far more suitable agnomen—”

“You’d have tried to call her ‘Shadow Maelstrom,’” Inigo cut in dryly.

A beat passed. “Shadow Maelstrom isn’t bad, actually,” Owain said. “The next one, perhaps?”

“There will not be a ‘next one,’” Say’ri said firmly. “And we are not naming this one Shadow Maelstrom  _ or  _ Soot Gremlin.”

As if to directly undermine her authority, the kitten mewed at her chosen title once more. Say’ri glared at her, refusing to bend to the audacity.

“I’ll make us tea whilst you settle Ophelia,” Say’ri finally said, turning on her heel.

She went to do so, only having just made it to the kitchen when the gallop of cat paws followed down the stairs. She scarcely had time to form a reprimand when the kitten launched herself up on the counter, peeking curiously at the tea kettle.

“Try it, then,” Say’ri said. “Mayhap you’ll learn your lesson once you discover the temperature.”

The kitten merely fixed her peering eyes on Say’ri instead.

“Off, then,” Say’ri said, flapping a hand. “‘Tis not your dinner time yet.”

_ Mew. _

“Would you—” she started again, then sighed. “Fie.” She reached for the kitten, keeping her at a careful arm’s length until she’d been safely deposited back on the floor. Then, when she heard the door upstairs click shut once again, she turned and called, “Inigo, really, ‘tis high time for her to go.”

Inigo let out a long, drawn-out sigh and started down the stairs himself. “I know you want her to,” he said. “But it’s due to get really cold soon, and I’m not sure if she can figure out how to hunt enough to keep herself fed. I’m not a cat, I can’t teach her that.”

“But _she_ is a cat, and cats have certain instincts,” Say’ri pointed out. “Hunting is among them. I’m sure the first time an especially tasty rodent stumbles across her path, she’ll— _Fie!_ Did I not just move you?”

_ Mew,  _ the kitten answered from the spot on the counter she’d been unceremoniously vacated from hardly a minute ago, her tail primly tucked over her toes.

“She wants her food,” Inigo pointed out.

“Aye, Inigo, I’m well aware she wants her food! I’d merely like to know how we encourage a taste for mouse instead!”

Inigo paused for a long moment. “I’m assuming that’s not an offer from you to go out and catch one for her, is it.”

Say’ri crossed her arms and shot him a dark look.

The kitten peeped again, stepping forward to headbutt her shoulder.

“She is needier than you are,” Say’ri said flatly.

“Hey.”

Say’ri finally shook her head, stepping away from the kitten’s reach. “Zounds, then, all right, I’ll not throw her out if you’re still so concerned. But there  _ must  _ be a way to teach her to fend for herself.”

“You intend to transform Inigo’s beloved puffball into the mighty feline hunter Naga intended her to be?” Owain piped up, appearing on the balcony. “Tough work. Inigo’s generally a terrible hunter.”

_ “Hey,”  _ Inigo said again.

“He does make a very good cat himself, though, so who knows,” Owain continued unabashed, jogging down the stairs.

“Fie, you’re telling me,” Say’ri replied.

_ “Hey!” _

“You’re right, dear cousin, I’m sorry,” Owain said repentantly. “I’ve done dear Soot Gremlin a great disservice to compare her to you. My apologies, furry menace of relational peace.”

“Gods’ sakes,” Inigo groaned, though he was slightly undermined by the fact that both he and Soot Gremlin were wearing what appeared to be the exact same expression.


End file.
